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Mp3's are a lossy format, meaning all that can be cut out of it without losing audible sound has already been done... so you cant really compress an mp3, I think I tried to zip one once it comes out the same size.

You can however use the bitrate setting when creating the mp3 to get it smaller. 192 is usually the lowest you will want to go before you can start to hear the loss of quality.

yes.. thats the one.. some of the bitrates i have were reaching 500 thats why its large in filesize..

..only i dont know how's the process to lower it.. say i have the mp3 with me with 500kbps.. how should i do it (the lowering process) using winamp or media player?? is it possible in these softwares to do that or do i have to download something??

The latest version of media player might be able to do it... but winamp probably wont.

The ideal place to set the bitrate is when the mp3 is first made... did you create the original mp3? or did someone else? the program used to either convert or record the mp3 itself should have the setting.

Trying to change it after the file is already made is a bit cart before the horse styles, theres probably a program that can do itm if there is I dont know what it is and a free one is going to be even harder to find.

You could use winFF (search for it) to compress your MP3 in to MP4 format audio files which are about half the size of regular MP3.

If you are looking at just content delivery (get sound engineering manual out... *Ahem *Cough)

you can strim an mp3 in various ways, you only need 44.1khz or better rendering for the capture of the audio, you can get away with 22.5khz or more for playback of stereo audio

Having bit rates above 128kbps is an overkill, you can get as low as 96kbps bit rates and still retain a good quality audio rendering, another method of compression is to use Variable Bit Rates (VBR) encoding, this has its advantages over Constant Bit Rates (CBR) but in some players VBR formats are not a crystal clear as they could be.

If you want average quality audio for streaming of content, you can get away with 22.5khz @ 56kbps with minimal artifacts. 80kbps will give a better quality rendering.

Please be aware that you will have some people telling you that they can hear the difference between 44.1 khz and 48 khz recordings, this is utter rubbish because the human ear can not hear above 22.5khz, well women are generally accepted to be known to have a higher range, up to 24khz frequency rates. That is a biological fact.